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From '' Eva ''
Label: Supraphon -- 1 13 1108
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Stereo, Gatefold
Country: Czechoslovakia
Released: 1972
Tracklist
A1 Rodeo
A2 Jsem Tvá Dlouhá Pouť
A3 Caruso Mi Zpívá
A4 V Ptačích Rájích (Birds Of A Feather)
A5 Noc Je Příliš Krátká (Hacia Donde)
A6 Mám Tě Dost (You Can't Come Home Again)
B1 Opakuj To Dál
B2 Největší V Las Vegas (Big In Vegas)
B3 Zkus Bejt Sám, Za Chvíli Vzdáš To (Goodbye Sam, Hello Samantha)
B4 Vlčí Máky (Solitary Man)
B5 Zeptej Se Honem (Kentucky Woman)
B6 Tam, Odkud Píše Mi Láska (The Letter)
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\"The Letter\" is a song written by Wayne Carson Thompson which was a #1 hit in 1967 for The Box Tops.
History
The track was recorded at American Sound Studio in Memphis in a session produced by Dan Penn.
Previously a musician and engineer at FAME Studios, Penn had been hired as production assistant to American Sound's owner Chips Moman, who Penn felt was shutting him out as a collaborator.
Penn recalls: \"Finally, I just told [Moman]...'Look, we can't produce together...I think I can produce records [alone]...But I do need somebody to cut.
Give me the worst one you got'.\" Moman suggested Penn record a local five man outfit who had been pitched to him by disc jockey Ray Banks (Penn - \"Chips was just graspin'. He'd never heard [the group]\") and also passed on to Penn a demo tape of songs cut by his friend Wayne Carson Thompson which included \"The Letter\".
Thompson's father dabbled in songwriting and would suggest ideas to his son, who had written \"The Letter\" after his father had suggested: \"Give me a ticket for an aeroplane\" as a potential opening line for a song.
Penn met with some of the members of the group - who were eventually dubbed the Box Tops - \"and told them to pick anything they wanted from this tape [by Thompson], but make sure that we do 'The Letter'\" which Penn considered the one outstanding song.
Augmented with strings and horns (arranged by Mike Leach), the track was picked up by Larry Uttal of Bell Records who released it on the subsidiary Mala label in July 1967 to reach #1 that September.
Retaining the #1 position for a total of four weeks, \"The Letter\" was ranked as the #1 hit of 1967. The track also gave the Box Tops an international hit charting in Australia (#4 for six weeks), Austria (#9), Belgium (Flemish region) (#2), Chile (#1), Denmark (#7), France (#2), Germany (#5), Greece (#2 foreign release), Ireland (#11), Israel (#1), Malaysia (#4), New Zealand (#4), the Netherlands (#3), Norway (#1), Poland (#1), South Africa (#4), Spain (#9) and Sweden (#2). The Box Tops also reached #5 in the UK, besting a cover by the Mindbenders which reached #42.
Covers
In November 1968 the Arbors recorded an easy listening style version of \"The Letter\" in a session at Record Plant Studios in New York City produced by Roy Cicala and Lori Burton; the session was arranged and conducted by Joe Scott. Released on CBS Records Date label, the track reached #20 in the spring of 1969, also ranking at #26 on the Easy Listening charts and #24 in Canada.
\"The Letter\" returned to the U.S. Top Ten in June 1970 via a single release of Leon Russell's blues-rock reinvention of the song as performed by Joe Cocker and featured on the Mad Dogs and Englishmen live album recorded that March at the Fillmore East.
Cocker's revival was also a chart item in Australia (#27), Canada (#7), France (#48), the Netherlands (#27) and the UK (#39).
In 1978 \"The Letter\" became a disco hit for Deborah Washington reaching #13 on the Billboard dance chart in tandem with Washington's remakes of \"Standing in the Shadows of Love\" and \"Fire\" - all three tracks were taken from Washington's Any Way You Want It album.
Amii Stewart also recorded a disco version of \"The Letter\" which was released on a single with \"Paradise Bird\" to become a double sided chart entry in the UK at #39 in 1980. Stewart's \"The Letter\" also reached #31 in France, becoming the fourth version of the song to appear on the French charts, following the Box Tops and Joe Cocker versions and also a translated version by Herbert Léonard entitled \"Une Lettre\" which charted December 1967--January 1968 with a #82 peak.
Ranked by Rolling Stone at #363 on the magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time,
\"The Letter\" was reported in July 1979 to have been recorded in over 200 different versions.
Among the artists who have recorded the song are:
Charly García,
Bachman--Turner Overdrive,
the Beach Boys,
Eva Cassidy,
Shaun Cassidy,
Classics IV,
Bobby Darin,
John Davidson,
Don Fardon,
Al Green,
Ellie Greenwich,
Sonny James,
Robert Knight,
Brenda Lee,
Trini Lopez,
Barbara Mandrell,
Peter Tosh,
by then a member of Wailing Wailers did a cover re-named \"give me a ticket\" on the album \"Selassie is the Chapel\" Melanie,
the Moments,
Lou Rawls,
Johnny Rivers
and Dionne Warwick.
Gil Dobrică recorded a Romanian language version in 1987, Scrisoarea.
A cover by A-TeensIn in 2003
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